


been fighting like soldiers, living like vultures, hiding like ghosts

by biochemprincess



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 23:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6399235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biochemprincess/pseuds/biochemprincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It shouldn’t be you. You are not weak, Jemma. Not for trying to shoulder the weight for of us all. You are only ever choose to walk forward, never taking a step back. You are never weak. But it shouldn’t be you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	been fighting like soldiers, living like vultures, hiding like ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> written for the prompt: maysimmons + 'is that your hand on my leg?'  
> title by ghosts from kensington.

_Tachycardia is a heart rate faster than 100 beats per minute in adults. There are many reasons for an elevated heart rate, physiologic or pathological, such as: pain, fever, infections, drugs, fear —_

Fear.

Fear.

Fear.

“Simmons.”

May’s voice cuts through the fog of fear that clouds her rational thinking. Recounting old memorized facts helps her ground. Her own heart is beating at a rapid pace, far above 100 beats per minute. 

_Fear._

She shouldn’t be afraid, should be used to it, but right here, right now, she is. 

“Is that your hand on my leg?” Jemma whispers, her voice never betraying her inner turmoil. The storage closet is small and smells of bleach and cleaning agent. They are waiting in the darkness, like predators for their prey.

Jemma isn’t entirely she can distinguish one from the other, isn’t sure which one she is.

“Yes.”

Touch is grounding too, calming. Warmth seeps through the fabric of her black trousers, a shield against the cold, harsh darkness of the night.

Waiting is the worst part, when there’s no fair distribution of the balance, when she can’t do anything but rely on others. It shouldn’t be like this, this wasn’t the plan. 

But they are operating far beyond any plan at this point, with no communication and too little munition. It’s trusting their team to get them and trusting themselves to survive. 

“Here.” 

Jemma stares at the weapon suddenly in her hands, even though she can’t properly see it in the dark of the storage, feels the heavy weight of it in her too small hands. 

“That’s your gun,” is all she says.

“I’ve seen your growth myself. You are a fantastic shot.” May’s voice is even. “You don’t have to get too close.”

“What about you? You can’t go out unarmed.”

“Jemma.”

“I will not let you sacrifice your life for mine.”

_Not you too._

There are too many names etched into her skin so she may never forget the price they paid for her life. With every breath she takes, Trip and Will do not. She can’t be responsible --- can’t breath for another person. 

May breaths out, but doesn’t answer immediately. She counts the steps of  the guards in front of their cell, Jemma knows because she does the same. 

_Soon, but not yet._

It is only then that she answers.

“I will not die. And neither will you. I’m never unarmed. But you have to take the gun.”

She grips the gun harder in her hands, a lifeline. 

“Andrew?” It’s a question and a fact and thousands of unsaid words drenched in blood and guilt.

“We stick to the plan. Do not kill if there’s another way.”

“What if he attacks you?” 

A genuine concern. He is more Lash than Andrew right now, but the emotional ties are still there. If he’d go after anyone, it would be May. Not to cause harm, but because the man still recognized her on a deeper level. But they couldn’t know if the man’d be able to keep the monster in check.

“I’ll take care of him.”

“I know we still hope for the best, but if it comes to the worst and he harms you —”

May shifts, her leather jacket rustling with the movement, gripping her upper arm. Jemma can feel a slight tremble through them both. “If — then I’ll take care of him.”

The realization dawns on her; not slowly, instead like being run over by a truck, a heavy weight settling in her chest. For one second all breath leaves her body.

“May —”

“I’ll kill him.” 

Jemma can see May’s dark silhouette, can feel May’s pulse through the hands wrapped around her own wrist.

“You can’t do it.”

“And neither can you.”

Their hushed voices die down, neither of them able to keep on talking. This is a fight she cannot win, but it won’t stop her from trying.

May sighs. “Some people are born for war. Neither you nor I are one of them. But sometimes war takes a hold of you and never lets you go again. And —” 

The urge to interrupt is there, words at the tip of her tongue, but May squeezes her wrist a little harder. 

“It shouldn’t be you. You are not weak, Jemma. Not for trying to shoulder the weight for of us all. You are only ever choose to walk forward, never taking a step back. You are never weak. But it shouldn’t be you.”

Tears fill her eyes, threaten to spill, but Jemma holds them back. Now is not the time. Tears are for later, when the battles are won and the adrenaline is wearing of. Tears are for those who survive, that she knows.

“No one will die today. We won’t lose anyone else.” There’s conviction and bravado in her voice and most of it is fake, but some of it is real and nothing else matters. She swam 90 feet from the bottom of the ocean to the surface once, on nothing but determination and the will to survive, to safe Fitz. “There always is another way.”

Jemma can feel May’s nod, even if she can’t properly see it. Then there is a tap on her shoulder, their sign to move.

_3_

_2_

_1_

And an open door and endless possibilities and an unknown future.

 

-

-

-

 

One of her ribs is cracked, more likely two or three and there’s a steady trickle of blood from a cut on her forehead, blurring her sight as it runs into her eyes. Breathing becomes more difficult every minute - a sign of punctured lungs -, but she has to find May.

She lost her earlier in the heat of the fight. Malick’s soldiers are not a problem for them, they are gone, rats fleeing the sinking ship. They won’t come far, Jemma knows, SHIELD take care of that.

She has to find May.

Ugly sounds echo through the deserted hallways, louder than the blaring alarms. Her vision is dizzy, but she moves forward. She doesn’t need her eyes, her ears take her to Lash just fine.

She sees him first, cowering over a fighting May, both covered in blood. It’s not theirs, Jemma thinks, or May wouldn’t be standing anymore. 

Their eyes meet across the room, May telling her to wait, begging her to wait. But she has to save her.

There are two bullets left in her gun.

May’s gun.

_It shouldn’t be you_

_Sometimes war takes a hold of you and never lets you go  
_

She is not a child of war.

No, that’s the wrong horsemen. 

Sometimes _death_ takes a hold of you and never lets you go.

There are two bullets left in the gun in her hands.

_No one will die today_

Jemma shoots. Twice. 

The blowback is too much for her weakened state. But she knows she hasn’t missed her target as she falls to her knees. All she sees is blood, endless rivers of it.

_She’s biochem._

She’s a healer, knows how to save lives, but she also knows where to end them.

Then everything goes dark and she’s alone once more.

 

-

-

-

 

Later, much later, after the world (they, they, they) finds (find) an equilibrium again and heroes and Inhumans and other kinds of people live together in harmony (most days), they will tell this story with awe, the hymns for the heroes who fought it.

_They took down Lash on their own. After fighting an army of Hydra soldiers._

The story changes, depending on those who tell it and those who listen and what kind of day it has been.

(Neither May nor Jemma like it, the knowledge of how much they had to sacrifice to be able to tell it always in the back of their minds. But they are able to tell, so they let it be.)

_Battered and bloodied and Simmons still shot Lash. And she hit._

But the new generations of Academy students gossip anyway, sometimes they even find one brave enough to ask them outright.

(They never ask Jemma about it though, at least not alone. Even the young ones can see the old demons in her eyes, those that will never really leave, but those she fights every day. 

The battles she wins.

Maybe not a child of death after all.)

_And then May, the Cavalry, finished it.  
Don’t call her that._

The new arrivals every autumn never believe the others, when they tell them the myth of the woman who teaches their laboratory classes; the woman with the soft brown curls, the colourful blouses, the welcoming smile, always starting the year with an anecdote about tachycardia. 

By December they all know better, having _seen_ the woman with the spine of steel, blood like fire, heart like a galaxy filled with stars.

Professor Garner never answers their questions either, no matter how often they ask, but sometimes he smiles knowingly.

“I’m alive, so how much of it can be true?” He says, but there’s a darkness underneath his smile he can never fully hide.

_Nobody died that day_

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you think about it. you can also find me @ mightyjemma.tumblr.com


End file.
